Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1887-07-15
Your sincere friend,
TILE END
BITTER CREEKS BAD MAN.
The Original Citizen Who Made Lite Miser
able for the People.

The Original Citizen Who Made Life Miser-
able for the People.
San francisco Examiner.
Nay had the power I'd pour.
The sweet milk OF Concord into he'll,
Uprear the univt rsal peace,
Confound all unity on earth.
II admit that am from Bitter Creek"
said W. T. Robbins at the Russ House yes
terday, can't help it. l was from
there, and now can't very well get away
for keeps. Besides, why should l: 1 am
doing very well there a2d like the place.
But got little weary. Everywhere l
go when l put down my name the fool
clerk says
"'Oh, aha! Your the Bad Man from
Bitter Creek, are your"
These things make me weary! New
to the idiotic clerks and others, perhaps,
who make the remark, but awfully old TO
me.
You say you half supposed this Bitter
Creek, or at least the Bad Man part of it.
Consult your map. You'll find one Bitter
Creek in Wyoming, two il ArlZonia, one,
and possibly two, in Utah, one In Mon
tana, and one in California. Almost all
are small streams, or they would be called
rivers.
"Well, the genuine and historic stream
is in southwestern Montana, and that's
were hail from. The creek is 10 miles
long, and empties into the the Clark's
Fork of the Columbia.
"The bad man was a fellow named Jim
Yount, an exceedingly rocky individual,
who came there in very early times from
Tennessee. Nobody knew the exact date,
for he was ahead of most everybody else.
He was none of your mild hammered, sort
n m
Originally in Tennessee, l suppose he
was a Knob hitler.
"U poM my word, he was the most vic
ious, vindictive man l ever heard of. He
fairly earned his title. We heard he was
murderer in Tennessee of three boys,
playmate in school whom he didn't like
He sloped to Missouri and knitted an old
gentlemen, in whose employ he was, be
cause the old man insisted on his getting
up at o'clock IL the morning.
HE blazed his way in this manner
pretty efectually to the West. One of
his first deeds, which the pioneers of Mon
tana recollect was the shooting off of
both ears of a Lull. whacker by Jim.
Jim saw him driving along, and re-
marked to a friend that he thought he
could make a center shoot on the team
ster's big ear. The friend doubted it, and
he let her go. He struck the auditing
apparatus plum in the middle. Before the
teamster could clap his hand on the shot
| ear whack went the ball through the 9th
er one.
The bad man then asked the bull
whacker if he didn't want him to present
| him with a couple of earbobs since he
had such nice round hole to put them
| in.
| house-some twenty miles away. He
claimed the children made faces at him
as he was going along one day, and he'd
! be hanged if he'd have such kids to grow
up to know any more then he did.
"In dispute with two confederates
! about some stolen horses in 80, year
after this school house, he killed both of
| them, took all the stock and gobbled their
money. He didn't even bury the fellows,
| but left their bodies laying only fifty
! yards or so from the corral.
But his best hold was in the saloons.
| He'd drink barrel of whiskey every few
| days-no soft drink for him-uhiskey
every time. He had bleared, blotched
| face that looked like chrome, and his
oaths and language in general was some
thing frightful to hear.
Il don't recollect crime in those ear
| ly days that he didn't commit. He held
! up stages, stole bullion and robbed mails
| with impunity. Nobody molested him.
! Every body feigned now to know who did
| 1T, and everybody went around cringingly
asking Jim as they patted him on the
! back, to take drink. Quiet often led
| get mad at this even, and tell them to
have a care how they came soldering
| around him or he'd shoot the top of their
| head off.
Jim played many brilliant engage
| ments of this sort around Virginia City,
| in Montana, Boulder City and Others
| places. His Bitter Creek ranch was only
a rendezvous for him, sort of a central
or pivotal point, where he and fellow
| thieves rounded up their stolen horses
| and cattle.
Jim run along for several years in
| thi. way, cutting, shooting and killing
until he boosted himself that two grave
| yards wouldn't hold the people that he
| had laid away.
"In 81, however, j. made one trip
| too often to Helena. He had made his
| record over there. But the rich placers
| had drawn host of bad men there, and
one night when Jim drew his artillery in
| Tom Bests gambling drive and began
| to lay on right and left he got ball in
| his heart that forever fixed him.
"Oh the crowd, though, he killed four
| first and manned for life three or four
more. He was buried out in tbs foothills
near Helena, and for long time and I'M
| til it rotted away a plain pine board
| marked his grave and bore the inscrip-
ton:
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